Achieving Life-Work Balance
I challenge the assumption that we should strive for work-life balance. Rather, life should always come first. The concept of life-work balance implies working to find a balance between personal and professional; between have to do, need to do, and want to do with life as the priority.
Work to Live, Don’t Live to Work
The work we do serves many purposes in life. In some cases it allows us to provide a good or service. Some work sees us making a difference in the lives of others. Some work is skilled and technical; other work is creative. The work we do also provides resources by which we are able to live our lives. Work is important. But at the end of the day, work is work, it’s not life.
By definition, work is a task or activity that involves physical and mental effort to produce a given result. In contrast, life is defined broadly as an organism or system that can perform functions, grow, reproduce, and respond to stimuli. Which sounds more interesting?
The jobs we have can change. We can change careers, change fields, earn promotions, etc. The nature of our work within a given job can change. But in our work, we are always replaceable. In life, we are not.
What area are you committing more effort to? The area in which you are an asset- a form of capital for an organization; or the area in which you are invaluable to the people who love and care for you?
Life-Work Balance
Prioritizing life over work frees us from the barriers we set on ourselves. Prioritizing life over work may also contribute to more productivity at work due to engaging in temporal separation from mental labor. This means when we take a mental break from work and engage in completely different activities, we tend to approach the next work session with a clearer mind.
Unfortunately, the environments in which many of us function create situations that assign more value to our work than our own life. So how do we change this? How do we turn work off, and turn life on?
Step 1: Set life expectations
Step 2: Set work barriers
Step 3: Don’t overschedule life
Step 4: Work towards a personal goal
This article is the first in a 5-part series detailing how to shift your mentality and move towards life-work balance.
To be continued….
